Substitute teacher Adam Banse wanted a summer job with flexible hours, so he signed up to knock on doors in suburban Minneapolis and register people to vote.
He quit after two hours. “They said if you bring back a bunch of Democratic cards, you’ll be fired,” Banse contends. “At that point, I said, ‘Whoa. Something’s wrong here.’”
He isn’t alone. In several battleground states across the country, a consulting firm funded by the Republican National Committee has been accused of deceiving would-be voters and destroying Democratic voter registration cards.
Arizona-based Sproul &Associates is under investigation in Oregon and Nevada over claims that canvassers hired by the company were instructed to register only Republicans and to get rid of registration forms completed by Democrats.
Nathan Sproul, a former head of Arizona’s Republican Party and the state’s Christian Coalition branch, denies any wrongdoing and accuses Democrats of making things up.
“This is all about making accusations,” Sproul said Thursday. “They allege fraud where none exists and get the media to cover it.”
Former canvassers such as Banse have come forward in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Oregon in the past two weeks, alleging they were told to register only Republicans and to “walk away” from people who said they intended to vote for Democrat John Kerry.
Some said Democratic registration forms were tossed out or ripped up.
It is illegal to tamper with voter registration cards, which are numbered and issued by local election officials. In some states, including Oregon, such acts are felonies.
Eric Russell of Las Vegas said he watched a Sproul supervisor tear up eight to 10 registration forms completed by Democrats and managed to grab some of the shredded documents as evidence. State officials are investigating his claim.
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